The Cairo Light Rail Transit (

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

: القطار الكهربائي الخفيف) or Cairo LRT is an electrified regional rail system linking the city of

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

New Administrative Capital New Administrative Capital (NAC) () is a New Urban Communities Authority, new urban community east of New Cairo in Cairo Governorate, Egypt and a satellite city of Cairo. As of May 2023, 14 ministries and government entities have been relocated ...

and the 10th of Ramadan City. An initial 70 km route consisting of 12 stations was inaugurated on 3 July 2022. Although it is named "Cairo Light Rail Transit", the system is not a

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

in the sense the term is commonly used among transportation professionals, where it is used for systems based on modernised tram technology. Instead the "LRT" is a system based on

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

technology, with trains reaching 120 km/h during revenue service. Further phases of the project are currently being built by a partnership between Egypt's National Authority for Tunnels and a consortium of Chinese construction companies. The full system is projected to extend over 100 km with 19 stations. The Cairo LRT system is operated and maintained by RATP Dev and CAC (CREC and AVIC) under contract with the National Authority for Tunnels, i.e. the Egyptian Ministry for Transportation.

History

The Light Rail Transit project was devised by the Egyptian government to link the

to the current capital of Cairo. Additionally, the system would provide transportation to other New Urban Communities to the east of

, such as 10th of Ramadan City, Badr City, Obour or El Shorouk. In August 2017, a $1.24-billion contract was signed between Egypt's National Authority for Tunnels and a consortium of China Railway Engineering Corporation and AVIC International to start construction of the project. On 3 July 2022, an inauguration ceremony took place with the attendance of Egyptian President

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi (born 19 November 1954) is an Egyptian politician and retired military officer who has been serving as the sixth and current president of Egypt since 2014. After the 2011 Egyptian revolution and 201 ...

and Chinese ambassador Liao Liqiang.

Route

The system links Cairo with 10th of Ramadan City and with the New Administrative Capital. The main branch of the system serves the city of Cairo in Adly Mansour station, providing an interchange with Line 3 of the

Cairo Metro The Cairo Metro (, lit. "Cairo Tunnel Metro" or ) is a rapid transit system in Greater Cairo, Egypt. It was the first of the three full-fledged metro systems in Africa and the first in the Middle East to be constructed. It was opened in ...

. The line extends east serving the New Urban Communities of El Obour, Future City, El Shorouk, New Heliopolis and Badr City. At Badr Station, the tracks separate, with one branch turning north towards 10th of Ramadan City and another turning south towards the New Administrative Capital. The northern branch currently terminates in the Knowledge City Station, in the outskirts of 10th of Ramadan. The line will reach the center of the city via an extension of with three more stations. The New Administrative Capital branch turns south, serving the Capital International Airport before terminating at Arts and Culture City. This station will provide an interchange with the Cairo- New Administrative Capital Monorail line in the future. The branch will serve the Nativity Cathedral and the Octagon military complex with an extension over and four stations over all before terminating at the future New Administrative Capital high-speed rail station. And there is another extension of and one station until the industrial zone under studying.

Stations

References

{{RATP Group Rail transport in Egypt Transport in Cairo RATP Group Light rail in Egypt Standard-gauge railways in Egypt New Administrative Capital

History

Route

Stations

See also

References